Internal Competition: The Key to Success at Foster Farms Dairy

Competition is what makes things tick at Foster Farms Dairy. Located in Hilmar, California, Forster Farms boasts 5 dairies each housing approximately 1000 milk cows. At each of the farms the cows are milked 3 times per day and housed in a free stall barn, and each farm raises their own replacements. Each dairy is run like its own business but all of the farms are within 10 miles of each other and compete under the big umbrella that is Foster Farms Dairy.

“The biggest advantage of having multiple farms is the ability to compare the performance of both cows and people at each farm and the comparisons really help to figure out the best methods and protocols to use on each dairy,” says Ron Haile, Manager of Foster Farms for over 30 years. “This way if four farms are doing great and one not so well it is easier to pin-point certain problems. When you only have one farm it’s hard to know if the problem is internal or based on external things such as the weather.”

Comparison between the farms is also important where nutrition and feeding is concerned. TMR is fed at all the dairies and feed intake is closely monitored. Dr. Arun Phatak, closely involved with the nutrition process at Foster Farms, often creates several different rations to see what works best on the individual farms in order to achieve optimal cow performance. Nutritionists are informed if there are any fluctuations in production at the dairies and all of the cows are body condition scored monthly. Foster Farms values the presence of Alta California’s AltaPreg Team, nutritionists and other consultants when they make their management decisions and the group meets on a monthly basis.

Competition between employees is also important at Foster Farms Dairy. Every week the dairy managers sit down to compare the performance of their employees. The gauge they use to do this is the heat detection rates on 1st service cows and the percentage of pregnant cows each week. Assistant Manager, Randy Haile, says, “it is important to let your employees know how they are doing on a regular basis, we find that weekly updates work the best.” The information is easily passed between farms by way of a satellite that connects all 5 dairies and the main office. All of the data entry is done at the office, for accuracy sake, and than transmitted back to the individual dairies.

Randy also firmly stands behind the idea that observation is the best method of heat detection. If conception rates on one of the dairies start to slip it’s obvious that the employees need to sharpen their observation skills, even though cows are also bred on secondary signs. There isn’t as much emphasis placed on high conception rates as there is on the number of pregnant cows each month. “Increasing the number of pregnant cows each month is the goal,” says Ron, “if you do that on a consistent basis the other numbers will fall into place.”
Frequent refresher courses, put on by Alta California, in heat detection semen handling and reproductive tract training are also provided for the employees at Foster Farms. Again, this encourages competition between the employees and they strive to improve if their current performance is not up to par with the rest of the people they work with.

With so many farms to run and so many employees needed, most of the staff at Foster Farms is from Hispanic decent. Language barriers have been overcome by having management individuals go from farm to farm to talk with the employees on a regular basis and most of the barn foremen are bilingual.

The managers at Foster Farms Dairy are also very proud of the calf care system they have in place. All of the female calves stay on the farm to be raised instead of being shipped off to calf growers. Each farm is also equipped with its own colostrum pasteurizer and there are very consistent, strict protocols that are in place for colostrum feeding.

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Posted Jun 27th

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